Affirmative Action in Hiring of Faculty and Staff

Hiring

Because the mission of Connecticut College is to create an environment in which students can achieve academic excellence and prepare themselves to be global citizens, we are committed to hiring a diverse faculty and staff. Research has shown that academic achievement is higher when students are learning in a diverse environment. Furthermore, many of our students pursue jobs and careers in countries around the world after graduation.

By hiring faculty and staff from a variety of countries with different racial, ethnic, religious, and sexual identities, we begin to replicate the world in which our students will live and work when they have finished their undergraduate education.

At Connecticut College, the Dean of Institutional Equity and Inclusion works closely with all search committees to launch active searches that will help diversify our faculty. Active searching include advertising open positions in a variety of publications and contacting graduate departments with large numbers of Ph.D.’s from historically underrepresented groups.

In our searches for new faculty and staff, affirmative action includes but goes beyond a set of specific practices: it is infused in our hiring process as an understanding on the part of our search committees that excellence in an educational institution requires diversity. That understanding generates creative strategies for attracting a diverse pool of candidates with the highest credentials.

Our search committees are guided, from the very beginning of the search process, by institutional values grounded in our mission statement, and one of the four values is diversity. The institutional values shape the writing of the advertisements, all outreach efforts to attract candidates, the process of reviewing applications, and the interviewing and decision-making processes.

Retention

The flip side of hiring is retention. Connecticut College has made a number of recent structural changes that should strengthen the retention of faculty who bring diversity to the campus.

- In the Spring of 2015, the Dean of Institutional Equity and Inclusion was created and this person is the College's Senior Diversity Officer.

- Reporting to this position is the Associate Dean of Institutional Equity and Inclusion.

- In addition, the Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity (CCSRE) is the hub for researching and teaching race and ethnicity across the disciplines. By focusing on comparative race and ethnic studies, the Center recognizes the multiple social, historical, cultural, religious, and political contexts that have shaped the construction of racial and ethnic groups.